How to Sell Tickets to an Online Event

Oct 04 2022 Updated Sep 30 2022

There’s a lot to love about selling your event tickets online. With online ticket sales, you can promote your event to a wide audience, estimate how many people will attend, and start earning ticket revenue before doors even open.

But where should you sell your event tickets? Should you use an event marketplace? Or should you consider an Eventbrite alternative? What about selling tickets on social media? Plus, how do you sell tickets on your own website—and is it worth it?

There are lots of options, and each comes with pros and cons. Below, we’ll outline three popular ways to sell event tickets online. Then we’ll share tips for how to start selling tickets on your own website, even if you don’t yet have a site.

Popular ways to sell your event tickets online

1. Event marketplaces and directories.

Eventbrite is king when it comes to online event directories. This popular marketplace makes it easy to create an event, sell tickets, and browse other event listings.

If you’re already in the habit of using Eventbrite, it might be worth sticking with it for ease and familiarity, particularly if you don’t host events very often. It can be an excellent solution if you’re hosting a one-off event and you don’t need a ticketing solution for your own website.

Pros:

Easy to get started quickly.
Creates opportunities for people to find your events by browsing or searching listings.

Cons:

Ticket sales are generally subject to fees, which means you don’t keep all of your ticket revenue.
You must send attendees away from your website and/or social media profile to buy tickets.
Limited ability to customize the look and feel of ticket pages.

2. Social media.

If you have a large social media following, it could make sense to create an event listing right on Facebook, TikTok, or another social network. Facebook in particular has built an events infrastructure that makes it easy for people to create events and sell tickets without ever leaving the site.

Selling on social media could make sense if that’s where the majority of your community engagement happens. For example, maybe you’re planning an event specifically for the members of an active Facebook group.

On the other hand, running your ticket sales through social media might be confusing (or even appear unprofessional) if most of your business occurs on a different website.

Pros:

Sell tickets directly to your social media followers.
Avoid sending your followers to a different third-party website.
Easy to set up.

Cons:

Social media platforms charge different fees, so you won’t keep all your ticket revenue.
Limited ability to customize the look and feel of your ticket sales.
Audience is limited to your social media followers.

3. Your own website.

Selling event tickets on your own website puts you in the driver’s seat. You take control of your attendees’ ticket purchasing experience from start to finish.

By creating an elevated ticketing experience, you can also build trust with your audience. Instead of sending attendees elsewhere on the web to purchase tickets, you’re showing that you run a professional, polished business. This approach can require a little bit more work, but it can be worthwhile if you host a lot of events.

Pros:

Customize to your heart’s content and match your brand.
Keep customers on your website—no sending them to outside sites.
Keep all your revenue by cutting out third-party ticket sellers and fees.
Collect detailed attendee data (i.e., meal preference, T-shirt size, or other key information during ticket checkout).
Integrate with other tools, such as email marketing and your calendar.

Cons:

Getting started can feel overwhelming with so many options.
Requires some initial set-up if you don’t already have an ecommerce solution for your site.
Requires paying for hosting and domain registration if you don’t use a free site builder.

How to Sell Event Tickets on Your Website

Selling tickets through an events marketplace or on social media are excellent avenues for many people.

But here at The Events Calendar, we’re in the business of empowering event planners to sell tickets on their own websites. So if you decide that you want a Facebook Events alternative, or you’d like something different from Eventbrite, here’s a quick guide on how to create your own site and start selling tickets.

1. Create a website with WordPress.

Setting up your site is easy, even if it’s your first time. You can find a detailed, step-by-step guide here. You can also find lots of helpful resources for building your first website from iThemes, our sister plugin.

2. Add a calendar—or don’t.

If you regularly host events, it makes sense to add a calendar to your site. You can use a free plugin like The Events Calendar to add a flexible, customizable calendar to your site.

If you’re hosting a one-off event, perhaps you don’t need to worry about a calendar. If that’s you, skip ahead to step three.

3. Set up the Event Tickets plugin and start selling tickets.

Spoiler alert: We’re about to recommend our own product again.

But for good reason! Event Tickets is a powerful, free plugin that provides everything you need to start selling tickets and collecting RSVPs for events. Simply install the plugin on your site and get started.

This handy Getting Started Guide covers everything you need to know about configuring your Event Tickets settings and connecting your preferred ecommerce integration. Event Tickets integrates with PayPal, Stripe, and WooCommerce.

Make the Most of Ticket Sales

Whether you’re selling tickets on Facebook, Eventbrite, your own site, or somewhere else, we’ve got a backlog of helpful articles to guide your event planning and marketing. Read more tips and tricks here, and subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop.